Mark Shapiro won’t say it, but Jays fans should believe this is their year

Open this photo in gallery:

Toronto Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro possesses a remarkable consistency of tone. Whether he’s explaining away a 90-loss season or basking in a near-championship one, he still sounds like a guy trying to sell you term life insurance.

Few executives in Canadian sports history have taken the consistent kicking Shapiro has, and fewer still have come out the other end of it on top (or near enough). You would have to forgive him for rubbing it in just a little.

But during a Q and A on Wednesday, there was zero hint of an I-told-you-so. Instead, Shapiro headed in the opposite direction.

In the midst of launching the most exciting season of Toronto baseball in the 21st century, the man in charge came in with one clear agenda – make it much less exciting.

Cathal Kelly: Jays' GM Ross Atkins's lengthy extension leaves room for lethargy

“I think it’s a dangerous thing to think you have to build off last year,” Shapiro said.

Dangerous for whom? Sports executives?

Elsewhere, “There is no such thing as running it back.”

Someone let the Dodgers know that they imagined those two titles in a row.

And yet elsewhere, “We’re chasing excellence. Excellence doesn’t have a benchmark. Excellence doesn’t have an end point.”

Who said that again? Was it Moe, or was it Shemp?

Excellence doesn’t have a benchmark if you’re the president of a modern dance troupe. It does in baseball. They call it the standings.

Maybe it’s in Shapiro’s nature to talk up the bad things, and talk down the good ones. It’s hard to say, since last October was the first really good thing of his tenure. But even so, what a bummer – one we recognize around these parts.

Open this photo in gallery:

In his approach and aesthetic, Shapiro is about as American as it gets. When he slips into metaphor, it almost always winds back toward football. But 10 years of drinking our water has done the trick. He’s caught Canada Disease.

Canada Disease is never looking forward to anything, because it might not work out. It’s never saying you expect good things, because what if bad things happen?

Canada Disease is the triumph of small dreams and never getting ahead of the median. It’s why we have such a nice country, and also the reason no foreigner dreams of vacationing here.

Shapiro has professional reasons to indulge us in our biases toward mediocrity. He’s under contract until 2030. The guy underneath him just got a new deal that takes him to 2031.

If they win this year, you know what’s happening by 2030? They’re both losing their jobs. Because in that case, it’ll be ‘Mission Accomplished’ and let’s start a new storyline because the old one, however well it’s gone, is getting boring. Time for new characters.

The 20 best baseball songs aren't all about baseball

However, if they can push the ultimate release off for a year or five? That’s a more interesting proposition, consistent-employment wise. Less pressure, too.

Let’s just take a couple of years to find our footing before we go doing anything too crazy, like winning a whole bunch of important games and setting unrealistic targets going into next year.

Near the end of an hour, Shapiro did say he hoped the team would be “championship calibre,” but was clear that didn’t mean winning an actual championship. He seemed to suggest that mid-October was a good date range to target, rather than early November.

He’s not the only one with this problem. See also every single person in charge of a Canadian sports franchise, ever.

For once, can we not do this to ourselves?

Is it wise to think that the Jays can win again? Not if you’ve got a serious amount of money on it, no. But from a purely rooting perspective, why not? What other point is there to being a fan?

Open this photo in gallery:

You thought they had a chance three years ago, when they were total crap. Why not do yourself the same favour now?

Truly believing that your team can win it all when that is a valid proposition is one of the greatest, and rarest, inheritances of sport. How many times in your life have you had it? Especially if you’re a hockey fan as well as a baseball fan? Five, 10? Just because it doesn’t work out doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun to try.

Most of your life, this has been the time of year where you celebrate the imminence of spring and admit that baseball is probably going to suck. You’re making a deal with yourself to enjoy the thing of itself, its out-of-time rhythm and reassuring sameness, rather than any particular result. If they lose, you are okay with that. Well, not really, but you’ll save your rage and complaining for August. That’s when you’ll need your strength.

This year, finally, the Jays are in it for real. Not ‘might get out of the AL East if the Yankees and Red Sox buses T-bone each other after a game’, but genuinely in with a shot to win. They almost did it last year, and then they got better. Theoretically.

Do yourself the favour of taking a moment to bask in that possibility. Is it likely? Maybe not. Is it possible? Very. For now, let’s say immensely.

The guy who has to answer for it if it goes the other way doesn’t want you going too far down that road. Fair enough. This is work for him, not play.

For you, it’s play. Whether you’re right about it turning out doesn’t matter in the least. What matters is that you allow yourself the capacity for maximum joy in your pastimes. The greater the expectation, the greater the eventual payoff. That’s the calculus that keeps people coming back.

So are the Jays going to win it all? Of course they are. Excellence has a benchmark. This is it. For the purposes of this moment right now, it’s as good as guaranteed.